Junk Journals!

Hi everyone, Ruth here with this weeks inspiration post which is very loosely linked to our current theme of Spring is in the Air. For some reason Spring made me think of Spring cleaning, yes I know I've just lost half of you there but please bear with me! I'm always trying out techniques or create more pieces of art or embellishments than I really use and gradually the drawer I use to store these experiments in was full to bursting. I've been wanting to make a junk journal for a while now so thought I'd do some 'spring cleaning' to clear some space and make something useful at the same time.

When I started looking at what constitutes a junk journal, well it seems that almost anything goes and it's probably easier to say what it's not, so I thought I'd start by including links to some fab inspirational junk journal ideas found on pinterest but put the link to the original source. As you'll see many of these ideas have been around for a while but are still a great source of inspiration.

The first is made by Sarah just using envelopes, and is so effective. The second is a journal by Kate Crane and shows her using book text on the back of her pieces ( an idea I've used in mine). Next is a video by Shannon Green using an old book to create the journal covers and lastly lots of ideas on this site of Jackie and Michelle's. 

So this is the starting place, the drawer....and a box of smaller pieces, yes it had spread by the time I got around to it! 

When I'm overwhelmed with where to start, I find it really helpful to limit my choices so I reduced the colour palette and limited myself to using what was there, so I didn't create even more pieces. The base pages were about A5 size or trimmed to fit.

  

 I also allowed myself to use book text, 2 stamps (text and sequin waste) and the brayered paint techniques to alter the colours or put a base on the flip side of a page. At first this was challenging but  so, so rewarding; to create something out of 'junk', pieces that you couldn't quite throw away but couldn't really put on a card. So much so that I became obsessed with completing the whole 20 page journal.

To start I cut some grey board for the covers and as I don't have a cinch or bind-it-all, used some book rings. The journal holds 20 pages and I've already ordered some larger book rings to use as I add to it. The card was a real mish mash of types, none that I would use if journalling, but as I wasn't adding product, it wasn't a problem.

The inside cover and first page altered with book text and scraps. I have to recommend Tims' tiny tags and tabs die, as you'll note I decided to take it down the tags and pockets route and this die was indispensable. What made all the difference was sticking to certain colours for each page, as long as the colour was ok, it really didn't matter what you were adding.

A few details, the little booklet, was one I made out of a sheet of paper a while ago but then never did anything with...ideal!

The pages grow quite quickly. Another before shot.

 Anyone still have K& Co paper? I'd cut these flowers out years ago and never got around to using them, now or never then.

A few more pages.

A spring themed one. Another lovely part of making this is that it reminds you of other projects where you were testing out before the final piece. 

Lots of stamping and stencilling included in this journal anyway, these were gelli print backgrounds on some odd yellow paper I had!

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Sometimes the pages can be simple, no tags on this one but room to journal. Bistre backgrounds on cartridge paper and the regular followers may recognise the feathers from a previous challenge theme, 

Some of my favourite pages started off totally different and went through many changes. 

And some didn't, at the moment this is my favourite and quite quick and simple. Now I'm not going to show every page as you'll lose the will to live, so I'll post the remainder on my blog over the next week. 

To finish though I'll just mention the cover. I used fibre paste which gave a lovely flexibility to the cover. Lots of fresco paints and some stencilling and finally some calico craft parts which I have been hoarding but after some UTEE addition and a little treasure gold they seemed to look the part.

I hope this has provided a little inspiration to either use something you've been hoarding or some scraps on a project or maybe even your own style junk journal. And remember there's still another week to join in with our challenge. Ruth x